Tabletwoven band with silver drawn wire (more about the drawn wires below). Altogether 21 tablets were used. The pattern part consist of 9 tablets, and the edge of 6 tablets, “of which 4 are complete”. This could possibly mean that the edge consisted of 4 tablets without any brocading, but because 1. this can be observed only on one edge, 2. sewing of twisted threads to the border of a band is also a common occurrence, I chose to reconstruct it using only one tablet per outer edge. Geijer notes that the underside is loose, which means there was not much pull on the warp threads. Geijer also notes that flax was used in this band. I made my reconstruction using only silk, because I have so far not found flax threads both thin and strong enough to be used with fine silk. Geijer notes that this is one of the bands, where the brocading weft is turned before the outer border tablets, hence the cutting-off effect occurs here also.

The weft density of the original band is 12 threads per 1 cm, width is 12 mm. I have achieved 10 mm width (maybe because I didn’t do the 4-tablet border?)and 15 threads per 1 cm weft density. This means that the 0.2 mm silver wrapped silk thread I used for the brocading might be too thin – or that I beat down the weft too strongly.

Tabletwoven band with drawn wire. The pattern part consist of 7 tablets, the edge is 2 “complete” tablets and 2 tablets wide brocading between them. The two tablets under the border brocading might’ve been threaded with flax, as Geijer notes the threads are now missing. A total of 15 tablets were used for this band. Width is 8 mm.

I managed to achieve 8 mm width, again with weft density of 15 per 1 cm. Because Geijer only provided partial pattern for this band, I tried to analyse it based on the pictures in Birka III and a photo from Historiska.se. Thus the pattern I came up with is very irregular. At close inspection it is visible, that at least one of the tablets was threaded opposite (S), what Geijer also noted, and I implemented this also. Below is the comparison of my band and the original. I used spun silver thread with silk core.

“Drawn wires were formed by drawing out a length of metal, either between two people or two sets of apparatus or, later, by pulling it through successively smaller holes in a draw plate to reduce its diameter to the desired width.” (page 60)

It would seem that the drawn wires were a solid silver or gold wire of set diameter. However, Cathy Ostrom Peters in her article The Silk Road Textiles at Birka: An Examination of the Tabletwoven Bands, based on Geijer’s research, wrote:

“What is unique about the Birka tabletwoven bands is that the brocade weft threads of gold and silver are actual solid drawn wire threads wound around a cream colored silk core.”

She quotes Jack Ogden, Jewellery of the Ancient World, pages 46-52, as source for this statement, adding: “In this chapter, Ogden not only explains the differences between “drawn,” and “strip and block twisted,” wires and shows there various differences under magnification. 48-49.”

So far I haven’t seen a magnified photo of the “drawn wires” from Birka, so I can’t be sure, who is right. From my reconstruction-based research it seems, that at least some of the Birka wires had to be about 0.2 mm thick. If indeed they were solid wires wrapped around a silk core (without being beatten flat, as is the case in “spun silver/gold thread with silk core”), it would mean that the actual silver wire has to be thinner than 0.1 mm – to fit the silk core inside.

“Drawn wires were formed by drawing out a length of metal, either between two people or two sets of apparatus or, later, by pulling it through successively smaller holes in a draw plate to reduce its diameter to the desired width.” (page 60)